


Of Skin and Smoke

by joannabelle



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Almaren, And a side of, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Illness, Valinor, angbang, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 23:54:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4412876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joannabelle/pseuds/joannabelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melkor.  Mairon.  An exploration.</p>
<p>This is not a happy fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Skin and Smoke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crackinthecup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackinthecup/gifts), [jotunblood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jotunblood/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, nor this world.  
> Rating: M to be safe.  
> Warnings: Breakdown – mental, emotional, and crumbling.  
> Notes: Not crack for once; right? That makes two of us surprised.
> 
> This is dedicated to the beautiful Lemasque31 and Jotunblood, as well as the seriously bad day I had on Tuesday passed. 
> 
> For your pleasure: a sideways examination of Mairon’s post-Aulë coping mechanisms; and of the keen tanging hint that is regret.

* * *

  
It starts with but a sentence:  
  
“You were absent at the rounds.”  
  
The Vala’s words are growling, and they catch Mairon in a startle.  He is curled upon a chair; and the heavy weight of a lead-bound book drags across his thighs.  
  
For a moment the Maia simply blinks, eyes glazed in a stupor, as he is ripped up from the page – before an agreement churns, automatic, out the parting of his lips:  
  
“Yes, my Lord.”  
  
_My Lord.  My Lord._  
  
His voice is dull under the thick flickers of the fireplace: “I must have lost chart of time.”  
  
And it is a careful, simple lie, one that spools out his mouth without much thought.  Yet Mairon does not bother, on this day, to try and work up the strength to hide his frown.  It dents in scratches into his forehead and plunges down over his eyes.  
  
His fingers twist at the corners of the book that lays open upon his lap, a staining orange-tipped carding of parchments older than Valinor itself – he holds the dredged and decaying remains of an old Almarenean workbook, Aulë’s curling scripture still visible in redolent loops upon the spine.  Mairon fights the urge to slam it shut as Melkor’s piping, travelled gaze progresses along his arm – and instead, he takes to gnawing loosely at his lip.  
  
“It is not essential.” The Vala’s hand is waved in a swish, as though sweeping the matter away in the brushing of a palm. He seems distracted, of which Mairon is almost thankful, as Melkor’s eyes linger not upon the parchments but instead skim down Mairon’s form, hunched in the corner of a crimson silken divan in the centre of the study.  “It is merely … unusual.  For you.”  
  
“You do not seem yourself.”  
  
The comment is light, but Melkor’s words, somehow, ring heavy – and the Vala lists then slightly to the side, in a careful lean upon the doorframe, the vivid blue cut of his eyes never once leaving Mairon’s face.  
  
It is Mairon, first, that breaks the gaze, his eyes dropping in a plunge to the book within his hands – and he cannot seem to formulate a reply.  The words stick inside his throat, coiled around some terrible, burning ache that swells beneath his ribcage.   
  
His eyes repeat over the words, over that curling Valarin script:  
_First step: Prepare your space, steeping your tools –_  
  
“What troubles you, little Maia?”  
  
Melkor’s voice is low and grating, like the deep penetrates of a baritone drum, and it beats across each syllable in a mess, in a _rhythm_ – like the thumping of a hammer – that endless, constant thump –  
  
_First step: Prepare your space, steeping your tools –_  
  
And then, it is there – that questioning, wriggling pry that twists into his ear and taps along his fëa. Melkor is trying to seek the answers out himself in a sneaking burrow of probing tendrils – but Mairon quickly shuts the Vala out.  He is unsure yet whether Melkor knows of his conscious deflections, whether he know Mairon can even sense him there at all; but he catches the slight stilting of a breath from across the room and feels the onslaught lessen and he thinks maybe, just maybe, Melkor might.  
  
The crude burn of tears wells along the curving of his eyes, in that moment, and yet Mairon forces himself to focus upon the page crinkled on his lap.  
  
_First step: Prepare your space, steeping your tools –_  
  
He should have known better than to hope that Melkor may leave him alone.  
  
A hand curls upon his waist, and the words bite out his lips in a curt, chalking cut:  
  
“You do not seem yourself.” Melkor murmurs, this time into his hair.  
  
“It is nothing, my Lord.” He hears himself reply, in a weakened, failing bite. “It is not but a thing.”  
  
And it is indeed not a thing – for no _thing_ has brought it on. Not the scent of the bitter-gone ink spots rushed upon a page, or those dirtied instructions he reads through so many times upon repeat that the words float, embedded, inside his head – nor – nor the reassuring weight of the book that drapes across his thighs, his fingers still trailing upon the page …  
  
And it is not but a single thing. And yet –  
  
And yet it is the striking thumping of a hammer, that may or may not be the pounding of his heart. And it is the stab of metal upon a brush-worn pewter benchtop, and the liquid warmth of Aulë’s gaze.  
  
And it is the flame, that flickering _burn_ across his skin, as he breaks his hammer in dents along a knife; an adorned, gold-embossed Aulëan blade, a gift for their Lord Tulkas – as Aulë watches from across the room –    
  
And it is that he is Precious.  
  
It is that he is Admirable, and it is that he is light – a blonde golden tan sung in glows under the flame. It is that he. It is that he is –  
  
He is –  
  
“ _Mairon_.”  
  
Yet it is that he is – that here the _sound_ is off. For two octaves deeper and smoother along the edge, his Master’s voice floats along his ear – a question – and Mairon jolts in the single shaking of his head.  
  
And this is not Valinor; he must recall.  
  
For he sits curled upon a divan in the deepest levels of Angband, and his Master’s name is _Melkor_.  His Master’s name is _Wrath_ , and his kisses taste like cinnamon and curdled, burning ash.  
  
And there are fingers at his cheeks now, his lone book tugging from his lap.  Mairon blinks, startled, as he watches the lines of ink shift out from under his tight hands, a black flowing robe of ebony swishing in its wake. He smells the ash now, stronger than before, as Melkor leans in to press him soft against the backrest with the swept mouthing of his lips:  
  
“You are well?”  
  
The question flutters upon the air.  
  
Burnt thumbs gust along his cheeks, and Mairon blinks, in a flutter, and he _stares_ , open-faced and silent at his Master’s frowning, scar-creased face. The light from the Silmarils atop the Vala’s crown burn, there, at Mairon’s cornea – and they spring tears across his eyes.  
  
He is in Angband. He is sitting upon a divan.  
  
The words repeat, still, inside his head.  
  
_First step: Prepare your space, steeping your tools –_  
  
“Prepare – .” No; Mairon stops. That is not right; this is amiss. This does not answer his Master’s question –  
  
“ – _Yes_ ,” He switches, and the word flows in a jumble over his tongue.  
  
“Yes, I am well.”  
  
And in that second, he is crushed – as Melkor swallows him in a grasping, possessive _kiss_ that tastes of fire and burns like ice. And it is a simple lie, as Mairon feels the tears trickle, forgotten, down his cheekbones – though in some numb, stilted act he feels himself respond, a confusing twist against the silk sheen of the divan.  
  
Melkor pushes him into the backrest – all teeth and tongues and scraping, slicking lips and Mairon lets himself be taken by it, be distracted by the flow.  It is not a thing, really – he is here still, he is _here_ –  
  
He is –  
  
He is the blister-gone scraping of Melkor’s hands as they skate along his waist.  And he is the pounding of his heart that tastes like metal, and the crinkled pages of a book – that ancient, yearning book – discarded upon the floor.  
  
And yet his Master’s hands glide along his neck, at once both soft and possessive, both rough and gentle – and he lets them pull at him, carrying him back into the halls – into the deepest depths of Angband’s fortress where his Master wears the colours of the night and tastes like the fizzled remains of fire.  
  
And where his Master’s name starts with M and he stares at Mairon like a thunderstorm – like the rising of the moon –  
  
Melkor pulls back, teeth grazing at his chin, and Mairon leaves the thought behind – in a meandered twist of skin, a memory; the ghost of fingers pressed and breaths a-gasp, along the trailing lines of mottled flesh.  
  
A memory, like the cool whittles of a blade once pressed so firm against his neck, stood upon the stone tiles of a forge, his thighs dug into the bench – Aulë’s warm gaze upon his neck and Melkor’s mixed exotic tang lingered upon his breeches, a stain the Smith was not aware –  
  
A memory – of the yell, of the _roaring, thumping scream_ , as he sees Aulë one last time along the shore, a frozen, wooden stone upon the sand, the honey-brown eyes widening, and Melkor’s cool and firming grasp tugging at his bones –  
  
And Mairon jerks, a careless seize upon the cushions, as the room smears into a blur, and Melkor’s face hovers, staring, at his front.  
  
And –  
  
And he closes his eyes, then, to curl into his knees.  
  
For the Smith’s words still burn at his ears, and he can hear them, emanating from the open pages of that book, as they twist through the air and mingle into the ashen gusts of Melkor’s breath, and into the smoothing of the hand along his shoulder.  
  
_First step: Prepare your space, steeping your tools –_  
  
And it is all just _there_ ; it is all just there in that wry sentence – as his nails dig, pointed, into his palms.    
  
As Melkor drops in a gust unto his side, cushions dipped under the weight, and the molten taste of ash smokes down his throat – in a _flurry_ , a choking, dazzled mess – it drags along his skin –  
  
And as _Mairon_ –: tears streaking down his face –  
  
And as _Mairon_ – through the pounding hammer of his heart –  
  
As _Mairon_ – Aulë’s voice a crooning burn inside his ear –  
  
Mairon tries his hardest not _to breathe_.


End file.
